Gomorrah, series 1, Sky Atlantic, review: 'ugly, in a good way'

Remember Gomorrah, the 2008 film about the criminal underworld of Naples which peeled off the charm and glamour that attach themselves to screen portrayals of gangsters? A bleak account of the Camorra in action, it did away with tuxedos, limos and floozies. Instead there were just guns, drugs and impenetrable dialect. These hoodlums didn’t consult shrinks.

Roberto Saviano, the brave young Neapolitan journalist who wrote the original book – and still has the 24/7 police protection to prove it – has now expanded the film into a more clearly fictionalised television drama. The film felt like a set of documentary case studies that just happened to contain actors. In Gomorrah the series (Sky Atlantic) the single focus is on Ciro (Marco d’Amore), a handsome henchman employed to do the bidding of his ruthless capo in a civil war over who controls the cocaine trade.

See Naples and die? You don’t see much of Naples but you do see a lot of dying – via arson, drive-by bombings, shootouts and what have you. So far there’s no sign of the famous bay, just shakycam visits to sleazy backstreets, no-hope tenements and luxury apartments luridly furnished with ill-gotten gains. Vesuvius, star of the postcards, was the wintry backdrop to a rooftop convocation of killers.

As ever with dramas about honour among thieves and vagabonds, it was a job finding a killer to root for. Ciro is somewhat less of a gargoyle than his ghastly employer Pietro (Fortunato Cerlino), who like all mafia dons has married a dragon (Maria Pia Calzone) and sired a buffoon (Salvatore Esposito). You know you’re meant to root for Ciro because the nicer class of gangster has pretty bambini at home whom he tucks up after a hard night’s waste disposal.

Romanzo Criminale, a similar confection set in Seventies Rome and served up by Sky Arts a couple of years ago, caught viewers in the same bind. Funnily enough, that was also directed by Stefano Sollima. His style is less to shoot dialogue than eavesdrop on it. By the end of one episode of Gomorrah you felt like entering a witness protection programme. It’s crude and ugly (in a good way) – and, for those of us whose pathology is to romanticise Italy, it is another fizzing antidote.

Seasons 1 and 2 of Gomorrah are now available on demand from Sky Box Sets from May 11